The Big Oil-Electric Vehicle Connection

Neal Dikeman

For those of you interested in the sector under the sector in electric
vehicles, the guts of Li Ion battery technology, the week just got more
interesting than an overpriced, over hyped Tesla (TSLA)
IPO.

Check out a very
quiet unnanouncement in A123's SEC filings noting a multi-year
supply deal with ConocoPhillips' Cpreme,
the
emerging leader in anode materials for Li On batteries. The
technology is a processing technology to make high performance graphite
based powders out of plain old petroleum coke materials, that has the
potential to be very low cost at scale. A123 has announced supply
deals in the past with Navistar, Fisker, Eaton, Think, the
Chevrolet
Volt and a number of others.

For those interested in the guts of the Cpreme technology, a good
summary is here.
And a quick search of the patents includes: 7,618,678,
7,597,999,
7,323,120.

It wasn't too long ago when the only other contender for Tier 1 battery
supplier in the US, Johnson
Controls-Saft, was announcing their
Cleantech Innovation Award win and DOE award with a Cpreme logo quietly
slipped into the presentation, though likewise no announcements were
ever made. Johnson-Controls-Saft had announced lithium ion supply
wins
with Ford, Mercedes, and BMW. Maybe the liberal view is right,
cleantech can bring manufacturing and green jobs back to the US -
courtesy of our oil companies?

Or perhaps we should note that Tesla has announced it's buying
its batteries from Panasonic in Japan -
with our DOE money (about half of its total capital!) and
California
tax breaks. So maybe we'll just ship the new cleantech
manufacturing
jobs to Japan instead.